Tilburg Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of Tilburg, NetherlandsSydney Centre for the Foundations of Science, University of Sydney, Australia

>From climate change to the classification of illegal drugs the extent to which scientific opinion should prevail over other voices in determining public policy is hotly contested. What is it about the nature of science that confers epistemic authority on scientific opinion, and what are the scope and limits of that authority?

The aim of this conference is to direct the attention of philosophers of science and epistemologists back to this question, and to remind ourselves that the founders of philosophy of science saw this as a fundamentally question for scientific epistemology. We believe that recent developments in philosophy of science offer new resources to address the question in ways that have direct relevance to the practice of contemporary science and its application in public policy.

Keynote Speakers:

Sir Peter Gluckman FRS (Head, Centre for Human Evolution, Adaptation and Disease, Liggins Institute, University of Auckland and New Zealand Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor)Christian List (Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, London School of Economics)Prof. Theodore L. Brown (Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

Suitable subjects for submitted papers would include:

History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) perspectivesEpistemology of complex systems modellingEpistemology of highly mediated observationPhilosophical foundations of statistics and decision theoryEpistemology of translational researchIntegrating philosophy of science into scientific practicePhilosophy of science in science education